The Reply
by Terra7
Summary: [Lit] He had to remind himself that they were not the same. They’d broken each other too many times for that.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** The Reply

**Summary:** He had to remind himself that they were not the same. They'd broken each other too many times for that.

Lit - Begins during 7.20, missing scene 7.22. No longer a one parter - probably 3.

**Author's Note:** So I don't have a beta (clearly). This means a) your constructive criticism is even more valued, and b) if anyone wants to offer to beta in future I would be eternally grateful.

* * *

_Are we done?_

That's all the e-mail said. There wasn't even a subject line, just three words staring at him from the faint blue glow of his computer screen.

He should have been surprised to see it, to see any contact from her at all. He couldn't muster surprise, couldn't muster much of anything except a vague aching feeling. The corners of his lips turned up slightly as he closed the e-mail.

* * *

The e-mail was still sitting in his inbox a week and a half later when he finally decided to open it again. He typed quickly and sent his reply before he could stop to think about it. 

_Done what?_

It wasn't meant to hurt her. It was an honest question. He'd never really known what they were and he'd certainly never figured out what they had become. How could he know what exactly she was asking him?

A breeze from the window ruffled the pages of notes he had strewn over his desk. He watched as a few of them drifted lazily to the floor.

"Whatever," he muttered. Snapping shut his laptop, he padded out to his room to get dressed. The pages still remained fanned out, half covered in dappled sunlight when he finally left the apartment.

* * *

It took her 20 days to respond. He chuckled to himself, recognizing his refusal to round that to three weeks. He still tracked her, not like when they were seventeen and he could watch her across the diner from behind the pages of his paperback, but even without being able to see her, his mind always had tabs on her. 

When the message popped up in his inbox a tiny jolt of electricity went through him. He hadn't thought she'd actually respond. The Rory he'd seen last wouldn't have. She would have huffed at the way he had answered with a question. She probably would have been annoyed that he'd managed to use even fewer words than she.

That Rory wouldn't have e-mailed at all he supposed.

He opened the message with an almost morbid sense of curiosity. He wanted to see how she'd brushed him off.

He pictured an apology.

_Jess,_

_I don't know what I was thinking. I shouldn't have e-mailed you. I know you want me to let you be, to let you live and write in peace. I couldn't leave well enough alone and I'm sorry. Please forgive me._

_Rory_

He would have sighed heavily and replied quickly before filing the message away, out of his sight.

The reply would have read only,

_It is what it is._

He didn't get an apology.

* * *

He was in Stars Hollow a week later leaning against a telephone pole staring at a ridiculous patchwork tent. He'd been there for two hours before the rain had let up enough for him to venture out of his car. As he'd cracked open the door he fleetingly wondered if he'd have the courage to close it behind him. 

He looked down to light his cigarette and when his head righted itself she was there. Her eyes were as wide and as blue as he'd ever seen them and the only words she said before she dropped them to stare at her hands were, "You didn't reply."

"Reply to what Rory? All you wrote was 'I don't know.'" He responded levelly, but he was sure she still caught an edge in his voice. He sighed and took a drag of his cigarette.

"Why are you here?" Her voice was small but she looked stronger than before. He was barely afraid she was going to bolt at any second.

"I don't know." Her muffled laugh was bitter, but he still preferred it over the tears he has gotten so used to with her. With a glance back towards the strange tent he continued, "Luke called me, said he was planning a party. He thought… anyway, that's why I'm here. Luke called."

She took this in silently, and all he could think about is how much he wished she would look at him again. "I e-mailed you because I was freaking out about the future, trying to find some semblance of control or something…"

"You made a list."

Her eyes flickered up to meet his at that comment. She smiled before she returned to staring at her fingers and he thought he hadn't ever seen anything more lovely.

"I made a list. A ToDo list of everything I hadn't finished, everything I had to deal with before I graduated. Somehow you made it on." She paused to breathe before continuing. "I didn't even know what to write there. I ended up with just your name."

He didn't respond then, just waited until her curiosity got the best of her and she looked up to see if he was still there.

"Huh." A pause before he threw down his barely smoked cigarette and asked, "Want to take a walk?"

* * *

They ended up on the bridge (shockingly) before she ventured to speak again, "So are we? Done?" 

When he glanced over to her words there was determination in her eyes. It was hidden behind the glassy layer of unshed tears she'd had since he saw her, but he could still see it.

"That really depends on what you mean by done…. And we."

"Cut the crap Jess." Her voice and his name collided and he almost thought he could see sparks.

As he stooped to sit on the side of the bridge, he looked up at her and patted the ground beside him. "No." The word was enough to get her to sit next to him. "I can really only speak for myself. I'm not done." He stopped speaking and wished he still had his cigarette, if only to give him an excuse to do anything but sit here throwing himself on his sword. He absently wondered if they'd hurt each other enough to qualify their story as a tragedy. He'd probably died enough for both of them.

She took his silence as a cue and his mind thanked her when she began to speak. "I don't think I've ever been done… loving you… hurting you… being hurt by you." Her voice lowered at the end of her statement and his heart almost went out to her. Almost.

"Huh."

"What?"

"Nothing, I just wonder what your boyfriend would have to say about that." He spat out the word boyfriend, but she didn't flinch. He gave her credit for that.

"No boyfriend."

His eyebrow raised slightly in surprise but he quickly hid his reaction. It didn't matter, she saw it anyway. He wanted to press her for details, to know what happened, to be sure he didn't hurt her. He settled for a shrug and an "Oh."

* * *

10 minutes later and she'd told him about her new job, he'd relayed news about publishing in Philidelphia. It was almost as if they were back in high school talking idly about books. But this was real, no characters to hide behind and this was definitely not high school. He had to remind himself that they were not the same. They'd broken each other too many times for that. She glanced at her watch and looked back up to meet his gaze. 

"You should get back to your party. Lorelai will be worried."

"Yeah…" He could see her mentally preparing to do something. She looked pained. "Listen Jess, about…"

"The blond prick?"

She didn't scold him. She simply continued. "Logan…" He shrugged as if to say 'potayto potahto' and then interrupted.

"Tell me about it when you and Barack are in Philly."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

* * *

She walked him back to his car and was partway to the tent before she turned around to stare at him. She yelled a question. 

"We're really not done?"

"Not on your life Gilmore."

She smiled then and continued back towards her party. All Jess could do was stare at her through his windshield. He quietly whispered to himself as he started his car, "We'd never be done. Not even if I wanted us to be."


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** The Reply

**Summary:** He had to remind himself that they were not the same. They'd broken each other too many times for that.

**Author's Note:** It was a oneshot, I swear. But it needed a little Rory POV and so I figured, 'why not another chapter or two?' Your reviews meant the world to me. Thank you.

* * *

She called him every third day. Anyone who knew this would probably have assumed it was out of habit, but there was nothing habitual about it. For Rory Gilmore, dialing his number was a mountain climb and a bungee jump all at once. Three months of this and it still made her feel the same way every time.

"Hello."

If she concentrated hard enough she could see his eyes while they talked. She could picture the slight nicotine stain on his right hand, watch his lips move. He was an old, worn, brown leather sofa. She lived in a world of uncomfortable hotel rooms and folding chairs.

"Jess," she responded, relieved she wouldn't have to awkwardly ask one of his roommates to speak with him.

"Funny, that's my name too." He had the same sarcastic undertone she'd always known, but she could hear the smile in his voice and it put her at ease. As much at ease as her pounding heart and racing mind would allow anyway. She sighed, and it was enough of a response for him to let her off the hook. "How are you?"

"I'm well. I managed to trade seats so I don't have to sit next to crazy health food guy anymore."

"No more Yule Gibbons?"

"- hey, quasi-Yule Gibbons. It's not like he was eating trees. I don't think." She fiddled with the tightly coiled phone cord in her hotel room while she spoke.

"Fine, quasi-Yule Gibbons… I think I'm going to miss him."

She snorted, "That makes one of us then." They lapsed into silence. Not comfortable. Nothing had been comfortable in years, but companionable at least. She supposed companionable was a start.

* * *

They always talked about the present. The past was enough to shatter them all over again, and the future… The future was too fragile, too precious to allow their clumsy words to touch. She often wondered if they would ever speak about anything that happened prior to the party. She wondered but never asked. That would be against their unwritten rules, and she refused to be the one to screw up this time.

"I've been writing again." He offered during one of their calls a few weeks later. She had assumed he had been, but didn't want to press. The confirmation of words on paper, on hard drive somewhere was enough to remind her of just how much she wanted to read his thoughts. It was an impulse she had never really gotten under control, not since The Howl, not even close since The Subsect.

"I'm glad." She replied genuinely while her mind desperately begged her mouth to ask him more. "You're a beautiful writer." He scoffed lightly, but she knew her words still had weight with him. "I mean it Jess, even your margin notes were amazing."

"Thank you." She'd never heard him accept a compliment so well. Perhaps, she thought, he was no longer her Holden Caulfield. She was wrong.

That was as much honesty as she could handle for the night and she excused herself from the call a few minutes later.

* * *

Two days later and she was still in the same dull hotel room in the same dull city. She'd finished her article a full day before deadline and was wishing tomorrow would come so she'd have an excuse to call. There was nothing stopping her from breaking their pattern, but the thought of explaining the change to him was daunting enough to leave the phone in its cradle. It would be all stilted words and awkward pauses and he wouldn't make a move to help her save face. She knew he secretly relished making her squirm.

The faint blush created by her hypothetical discomfort still coloured her cheeks when the knock came at her door. Her head spun towards the noise and she couldn't help wishing that she was in some cheesy romantic comedy and that he was behind the door, prepared to sweep her off her feet. Another knock and she was up shaking her head. A quick glance through the peephole confirmed a deliveryman, not Jess, was waiting for her to respond.

"Rory Gilmore?"

"Yes."

"Sign here please."

Her signature hung half off the line, fading out to almost nothing as she stared at the package in his hands and not the receiving slip. That handwriting was impossible to mistake. She'd read angry rebuttals and probing questions and random musings in that handwriting. Cramped and angled like it was supposed to be stuffed in a margin, not scrawled across the top of a plain brown package.

The deliveryman cleared his throat and Rory's eyes snapped up. "Uh... sorry. Thank you. Goodnight." She was still talking as she closed the door and stumbled over to her bed. Perhaps she was more Meg Ryan than she thought.

The folds of the brown paper wrapping were heavy in her hands, and it was with precision that she untied the twine, pulled back the tape and unwrapped the object. The pages. One single sheet lay on top, Jess' signature scrawl hovering near the bottom.

_Rory,_

_I know you're busy, but I figured you could do with some new reading material. Plus, your thoughts could make this fit for human consumption._

_Jess_

_P.S. – Be nice to Yule._

There were only three chapters. They were the most precious things she had ever been given.

* * *

The story was in the first person. A surprise to Rory, it almost felt too personal for Jess to share with the world, let alone her. She didn't complain.

It was a good beginning. There were unique characters, quick dialogue and prose so soft she was shocked he could have written it. It was when she reached the third chapter that she recognized the real reason for his gift. The passage haunted her.

'_In that moment she was Aphrodite, Anne Elliot, Cordelia, Lolita, but she was never mine. I wanted to fracture her the way she had me, to push her until she pushed back or left. _

_I did nothing._

_Her eyes were pools of azure glass and I knew that if I wanted to I could make them crumble. I was done with demolition, so took the blows and tried desperately to withstand the onslaught. She would be gone soon enough anyway. _

_She always had been out of reach.'_

This was not their story, but this was her assault.

She cried herself to sleep that night. The next day she didn't call.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** The Reply

**Summary:** He had to remind himself that they were not the same. They'd broken each other too many times for that.

**Author's Note:** This is the last chapter. I may write something in the same universe at some point, but this one is a wrap. **Thank you again for your comments and reviews.**

* * *

Fifteen days without a word from her and he knew he'd done it. He'd pulled too hard and the tiny string left holding them together had snapped. She'd needed to know what she'd done to him, but the thought of telling her, of watching as her eyes filled and she clamped her hands over her mouth to muffle the sobs was more than he could bear. 

Her cell phone only rang once before it was answered. "Rory Gilmore."

"Good, you're still alive then. Just checking." He hadn't been angry when he picked up the phone to dial but somehow hearing her sound so professional, so _fine_ was enough to annoy him. His fingertips had almost reached the cradle and the comforting sound of a dial tone when he heard her respond.

"Jess! I'm sorry… I"

"-you sound it Rory. Listen I know you're in Philadelphia, and I'm sure you're very busy. I just called to make sure you hadn't fallen off the face of the Earth or something. But clearly gravity still works where you are so there's no need to alert the media."

The phone was back on the hook and he was out the door in the same fluid movement.

* * *

He didn't make it back to Truncheon for hours. Philly didn't have parks as good as New York's, but they would do in a pinch, and he had submerged himself in a book to keep from… from what he wasn't sure. Calling her to apologize? To yell? She was his Cleopatra and despite her best intentions he knew she would be his undoing. 

'_A shower and a cigarette. That's all I need to get rid of this day.'_ His mind groaned as he approached the front step. A huddled form sitting by the door looked up at him and his plans dissipated.

"You're still the same jackass you always were you know?" she hurled at him as she got to her feet.

"I'm not."

She laughed and it made a hollow sound at the back of her throat. It was unbelievable how imposing this tiny woman could be in a mere instant.

"I'm a different jackass." He smirked at her but got no reaction. She was a woman on a mission.

She stared. He sobered.

"I don't understand why you would show me just how much I hurt you … and then call to make me feel even more guilty." Her voice was angry, but her eyes were all sadness, misty with disappointment and guilt.

"I didn't call to hurt you. I called because you hadn't." He let out a pent up breath and it clouded up in front of his eyes. "Listen, if we're going to fight, can we at least take this indoors?"

She nodded her acceptance and he fumbled with the keys, feeling the nervous rush of a good chapter or a first date. He almost wished it was one. Their first date and she would stumble over her words and he would pretend to be aloof while his heart was beating so hard he could have sworn she could hear it. Thump. Thump. Thump. Instead they were sitting feet away on his lumpy couch desperately trying to avoid eye contact.

Levelly Jess asked, "Why are you here?"

"I had to know if the damage was permanent." She looked up at him and he knew she could see the hurt he still wore. _'whatastupidquestion'_.

He couldn't keep the bitterness from his voice when he answered, "What do you think Rory? Weren't you always the perceptive one?"

Her eyes flashed and she was the girl he knew in Stars Hollow, if only for a moment. "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places."

He recognizes the reference immediately, "Hemmingway isn't fair play-."

"-All's fair in love –"

"-and war. Which is this Rory?"

His gaze was piercing in a way she'd never been able to handle. The space between them suddenly felt far too small and she rose from the couch. Her hands crossed across her chest, she was still staring at a cracked baseboard when he broke the silence.

"The last time you were here it was a little hard to tell."

Her face collapsed as she contemplated just what had happened in this room the last time she was there. Kissing and Logan and pure manipulation. A breath to compose herself and she turned around to face him.

"Logan… isn't a bad person." She was sure of that. It was one of the few things she knew resolutely. She clung to those few scraps of certainty now. She needed them.

He saw her desperation and didn't push, but he refused to completely let it go, firmly responding, "All I know about the guy is that he let you drop out of Yale and he cheated on you. He sounds like a regular Prince Charming."

"He made mistakes. We've all made mistakes. We didn't break up because I think he's a bad person." And the wall went back up. Infantry to their positions, Rory was in full defensive mode.

"Why then Rory? Life too perfect? Afraid of your 2.5 blond children and your pearls and your cocktail parties?"

A shout in response. Her voice cracked partway through and she turned away again. "He left. For California." He had never pitied her before that moment. She would have hated him for his pity and he was glad she couldn't see the involuntary drop of his eyes. "He didn't run _from_ me, he tried to run _with_ me. I wasn't ready to be a bride, a wife, he wasn't prepared to wait."

Jess' mind screamed _'whatanidiotiknewhewasnevergoodenoughforyouanysanemanwouldwaitforever'_, but his mouth was silent.

She continued, mostly to herself. "He told me he had to go. I made the decision as much as he did." Her words were soft but her implication was clear, _'At least he didn't just run away.'_

Jess answered quietly, "So that's it – I'll always be the guy who ran."

"No, it's just-" Her head turned and he glimpsed a flash of blue eyes.

"-It is what…"

"Stop it with the fucking 'It is what it is'!" She broke then and he could practically see the shards fall away from her. He had to strain to hear her voice, hoarse and low and painfully thick with emotion. "It isn't what it is. It is what we make it." She was porcelain and he was afraid to even try to pick up the pieces. "What do you honestly want to make it Jess?"

Her look wasn't of desperation as he'd expected, it was all want and hope and wisdom. And it was enough to make it his turn to snap. Two strides and his mouth was crashing into hers and all of a sudden it was the sticky pull of Luke's couch against his back, the taste of Sno-Cones and Red Vines and coffee… always coffee. Her fingers were tangled in his hair and she was seventeen and twenty two at once.

Foreheads rested against each other, the pads of his thumbs traced lightly below her eyes. "I want whatever you can give me."

Her only response was a sigh as she leaned into his chest.

* * *

They lay on the couch, contentedly reading their books. Rory's finger drew designs absently over the arm Jess had wrapped around her waist. Her eyes darted swiftly across the page, stopping every few minutes to rest on his face. Feeling the gaze, he spoke, not lifting his eyes from the book in his hand. "Question?" 

She blushed but asked anyway, "You said you knew I was in Philadelphia. How did you? I didn't tell you." He shifted uncomfortably and continued to read. he mumbled before flipping the page.

"BarackObama dot com"

She turned to kiss his jaw before she answered, "You looked it up." His only response was a low grumbling in his chest that she felt rather than heard.

She felt a kiss pressed to the crown of her head and a small shuddering breath before he spoke again, "We can still break each other."

"I know."

"We probably will."

She nodded her agreement before whispering into his neck, "We'll just have to get really good at putting each other back together."


End file.
